2. alibaba - "drive to sustain growth in the progressing world of e

ALIBABADRIVE TO SUSTAIN GROWTH IN THE PROGRESSING WORLD OF E-COMMERCE

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Alibaba - Drive to Sustain Growth in the Progressing World of e-Commerce

Nanyang Technopreneurship Case Centre (NTCC)

“One day I was in San Francisco in a coffee shop, and I was thinking ‘Alibaba’ is a good name. And

then a waitress came and I said, ‘Do you know about Alibaba?’ And she said, ‘Yes’. I said, ‘What do

you know about Alibaba?’ and she said, ‘Open Sesame’. And I said, ‘Yes, this is the name’. Then I

went onto the street and found 30 people and asked them, ‘Do you know Alibaba?’ People from

India, people from Germany, people from Tokyo and China... They all knew about Alibaba. … ‘Alibaba

and the 40 thieves’; Alibaba is not a thief. Alibaba is a kind, smart businessperson and he helped the

village. So easy to spell, and global know. Alibaba opens sesame for small to medium-sized

companies. We also registered the name AliMama, in case someone wants to marry us!”

Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba at CNN’s Talk Asia 2006 (CNN, 2006)

Founded in 1999 by Jack Ma in Hangzhou, Eastern China, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (Alibaba) was

the leading e-commerce company in China with the largest gross merchandise volume (GMV) in

2014. Alibaba achieved USD 370 billion in retail GMV that year.

With a mission to “make doing business easy”, Alibaba provides online and mobile marketplaces to

facilitate retail and wholesale trade as well as cloud computing and other services.

The vision statements of Alibaba are:

To last 102 years

To be one of the world’s top ten Internet sites

To be an essential partner for all business people

The following is a list of popular marketplace Internet portals in China and the world:

11 Main – Based in the United States (US), this business-to-consumer boutique portal offers

exclusive items from well-known retailers.

1688 – This business-to-business portal targets China’s domestic market.

Alibaba – A business-to-business portal that allows foreign buyers to source products from China-

based manufacturers.

AliExpress – This business-to-consumer portal allows China-based exporters to reach foreign

customers.

Taobao – The leading e-commerce platform in China, this is a consumer-to-consumer auction

platform with over 231 million active buyers and more than 750 million product listings. An

estimated 50 per cent of the 9.2 billion packages shipped in China each year are processed by

Taobao.

Tmall – The largest business-to-consumer platform in China, Tmall gives brands and retailers a

virtual storefront to carry out transactions. Popular western brands selling on Tmall include Gap,

Nike and Marks & Spencer.

Juhuasuan – This is a shopping website that offers temporary deals and promotions.

Mei.com – This luxury flash sale business-to-consumer portal offers a discounted range of luxury

products. More than 2,400 brands including Armani, Ermenegildo Zegna, Michael Kors and

Guerlain are found here.

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The competitive environment Alibaba operates in

In 1999, Alibaba established its foothold in the e-commerce market – a time when the concept of

Internet retailing was still new to Chinese consumers. With rapid Internet penetration, Alibaba was

able to capture a huge market share and establish high consumer confidence with its innovative

customer-centric business strategies. As Internet retailing flourished amidst China’s fragmented and

underdeveloped modern retailing structure, Alibaba rode the waves of e-commerce and consistently

outperformed the global Internet retailing market between 2010 and 2013.

On a global level, Alibaba competes with eBay Inc. (eBay) and Amazon.com, Inc (Amazon). Like

Alibaba, eBay provides an online platform to connect buyers and sellers. Amazon, which started off

as a traditional Internet retailing company focusing on direct selling, warehousing and distribution,

opened its platform to individual and retail sellers in year 2000 to reach out to consumers. As stated

on Amazon’s website, “Over 2 million third-party sellers participate in Amazon where they offer

new, used, and collectible selections at fixed prices to customers around the world.”

Alibaba’s main competitors are Tencent and JD.com. Tencent was founded in 1998 and has grown

into one of the most widely used Internet service portals in China with popular products like

WeChat, QQ.com, QQ Games, Qzone, SoSo, PaiPai and Tenpay. Leveraging on its strong presence in

the Internet and social media realms, Tencent started its ecommerce venture via its messaging app

“WeChat”. In March 2014, it inked a strategic partnership with JD.com – one of China’s largest online

sales companies – to compete with Alibaba.

The following six success factors shed light on how Alibaba held up against its competitors to emerge

as the Chinese Internet giant.

Freemium business model – offering and selling premium services

Alibaba utilises a multi-sided platform (MSP) business model, which provides a service that supports

interactions between two distinct groups of people – the sellers and buyers. Such a platform creates

value to one group only if the other group is present and for it to be successful there must be critical

mass in both groups. However, there lies the challenge as no one side will join if the other is not in

place. In order to kick start the model, Alibaba began letting sellers sell without any charges. In line

with its “customer first” philosophy, Alibaba put the interests of its users first and gave the platform

away for free. It monetised accounts that wanted to gain the TrustPass™ membership as well as

reach the “Gold Supplier” tier. This MSP model with a free proposition – referred to as the Freemium

model by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur in their book “Business Model Generation” – beat

all of its competitors and won over Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who were

extremely cost conscious and wary of online retail during the early stages of China’s e-commerce

development.

Before the emergence of Alibaba, SMEs had few and inadequate sales channels to sell overseas. The

main channel was costly trade exhibitions where they introduced and demonstrated their latest

products and services to limited potential customers. Alibaba presented a cost-effective and

impactful channel for SMEs “to do business anywhere”. With Alibaba’s multi-functional

management system such as product photos, product descriptions, product categorisations, SMEs

practically owned a “mini website” which carried their company profiles, contact information and a

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virtual showroom of their products and services.

Reaching users (both sellers and buyers) through the right medium

“eBay may be a shark in the ocean but I am a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean,

we lose but if we fight in the river, we win”.

Jack Ma

As Alibaba understands the Chinese community far better than any of its competitors, it can “truly

care for the interests of its users” by developing business strategies that cater to their needs. When

building awareness and reaching out to its users upon entry to the market, Alibaba used television

advertisements instead of advertising on Internet portals, the latter of which was a strategy

employed by foreign competitor eBay. This proved to be extremely successful. Alibaba knew that

less than 3 per cent of the Chinese population had Internet access in 1999 while more than 90 per

cent owned televisions.

Ease of use and speedy delivery

Alibaba was aware that Chinese buyers were new to the Internet and so made it easy for buyers to

register and pay. Alibaba set up a quick and convenient payment platform called Alipay, which put

the buyer’s cash into an escrow account until the goods were delivered and judged to be

satisfactory. It made buying seamless and easy, as opposed to eBay, which integrated two systems –

PayPal and AnFuTong (安付通). eBay’s PayPal directed funds to the seller immediately once a buyer

had paid; it did not hold them in an escrow account. The complementary AnFuTong “escrow” system

was combined with PayPal to compete with Alipay. In its teething stage, there were a lot of

confusion and negative experiences as buyers mistakenly thought that the transactions had run into

error when they were actually moving between PayPal and AnFuTong. This resulted in a lot of

frustration amongst buyers, causing sellers to adopt Alipay instead, which in turn led them to sell on

Alibaba’s sites.

As the speed and ease of receiving orders was also an important factor, Alibaba invested heavily in

logistics and warehousing to improve delivery times for online orders in China. It was reported that

Alibaba had even gone to the extent of testing drones to quickly deliver goods within Beijing,

Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Establishing trust amongst buyers

One of the main reasons for the rapid growth of Alibaba in China lies in its ability to overcome the

initial lack of trust that buyers had in online payment processing. Other competitors like eBay and

Amazon had not enjoyed similar success.

In 2004, Alipay, a breakthrough payment system that gave a buyer a peace of mind, was launched.

Alipay is an online escrow system which ensures that payment is only processed when the buyer has

confirmed that the goods received are of a satisfactory condition. This, coupled with the availability

of other payment methods such as cash on delivery, heightens the security of buying online by

protecting the welfare and privacy of buyers.

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Alipay has evolved into a financial service provider, offering users features including national and

international money transfers, savings facilities and investment services in the stock market. Other

companies, besides those on the Alibaba sites, also use Alipay as a payment service.

Back then, Chinese buyers and sellers, who were new to e-commerce, struggled with logistics issues

that eventually led to trust issues. Alibaba recognised these pain points and dealt with them by

providing contact information as well as free instant messaging and voicemail services to facilitate

communication between the buyers and sellers. This allowed for real-time enquiries or clarifications,

hence reducing uncertainties and doubts. It also built trust between sellers and buyers. Even today,

eBay does not allow sellers to specify their contact information on its website and pre-empts any

communication between sellers and buyers outside of eBay. This is to prevent sellers and buyers

from transacting outside of eBay.

Leveraging on familiar “Chinese” experiences to attract Chinese consumers

Alibaba created an online experience at Taobao that felt like shopping at a Chinese departmental

store. The Taobao site was sorted by categories, reminiscent of the sections in a Chinese

departmental store. The men’s, women’s, electronics and more sections were a familiar sight to

Chinese consumers. Browsing through the site was like window shopping at a Chinese departmental

store. Hundreds of different categories and items were displayed on one webpage to lure customers

into exploring new products.

In addition, Alibaba marketed itself as a local business by using screen names inspired by characters

in kung fu novels; launching press releases with nationalistic Chinese media outlets; and designing

special promotional initiatives in line with Chinese celebratory occasions. In the beginning of 2005,

Alibaba won the exclusive right of auctioning the stage props featured in two of China’s hottest

movies. This attracted millions of young people to bid at its site. Alibaba won by utilising the mass

psychology and traditional media to gain popularity in a decidedly Chinese fashion.

Global strategy of attracting international sellers

On a global level, Alibaba’s strategy focuses on encouraging cross-border e-commerce via its existing

portals rather than launching new e-commerce platforms outside of China. From the perspective of

many international brands, these existing portals, which have established tremendous popularity

amongst Chinese consumers, are valuable inroads to the Chinese market.

In his speech at The Economic Club of New York in June 2015, Jack Ma cited “helping global

entrepreneurs, small businesses and companies of all sizes sell their goods to a growing Chinese

consumer class” as one of its global strategies.

Creating success through Chinese-style innovations

Alibaba’s success rode on the type of innovation that was very common in China – often underrated

but nonetheless groundbreaking. It was referred to by Erik Roth, a partner at McKinsey & Company

Shanghai, as “innovation through commercialisation”. Alibaba dominated its market by adapting

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existing technologies to satisfy market needs. The following subsections discuss Alibaba’s uniquely

Chinese innovations.

Innovating on occasions to buy

Alibaba recognises that Chinese consumers love to browse for bargains and special promotions. It

launches aggressive and attractive promotional activities on special occasions throughout the

calendar year. The special occasions include Teacher’s Day, Secretary’s Day, Singles’ Day, National

Day, Spring Festival and the more westernised celebratory seasons like Christmas and Thanksgiving.

Singles’ Day on the 11th of November is the most significant example of how Alibaba capitalises on

the celebratory mood to create phenomenal sales. In 2009, Alibaba turned Singles’ Day, an informal

students’ celebration of singlehood – as opposed to lovers’ celebrations on Valentine’s Day – into an

online shopping occasion by offering exceptional discounts. The enormous success of the inaugural

11/11 occasion prompted the majority of online and offline retailers in China to embrace it and

launch promotions on that day. In 2015, Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sales hit a record high of USD 14.3

billion, smashing the previous year’s record of USD 9.3 billion. These exceptional numbers were

boosted by a pre-sales initiative under which merchants advertised prices as early as October. Sellers

accepted deposits for items but only processed full payments and delivery of goods on Singles’ Day

itself. 27,000 sellers participated in Alibaba’s Singles’ Day shopping occasion in 2014 – an incredible

spike compared with the 27 sellers in 2009 when it was first launched.

In support of its aggressive promotional tactics, Alibaba announced its investment in the luxury flash

sale website Mei.com in July 2015. Mei.com specialises in retailing luxury goods like Armani clothes,

Tiffany jewellery and Shiseido cosmetics at discounted prices over specified time intervals. As

Mei.com works with more than 2,400 international brands including Armani, Ermenegildo Zegna,

Michael Kors and Guerlain, Alibaba aims to leverage on Mei.com to complement its own array of

luxury product offerings.

Innovating to deliver

In 2014, more than 8,300 purchases were made every minute on Alibaba's two e-commerce sites –

Taobao and Tmall. The two sites generated 12 million parcels a day, accounting for more than 60 per

cent of parcel deliveries in China. Thus, logistics is a critical aspect for Alibaba’s business, given the

geographical size of its core market. Reliability and speed of delivery are vital for the success of

Alibaba’s business model. Furthermore, being able to serve second- and third-tier cities as well as

remote areas is paramount for Alibaba’s immediate and future expansion.

Although Alibaba does not have control over delivery – logistics is mainly arranged by sellers who

tend to outsource to local delivery companies – it is clearly in Alibaba’s interests to build a strategic

logistic network and ensure a hassle-free delivery of products. With a comprehensive network of

logistics partners, including leading delivery companies like SF Express and Shentong Express,

Alibaba set up China Smart Logistics Network, a delivery platform that enables information sharing

to improve delivery services. This innovative system allows each stakeholder to track the delivery

statuses at any point in time, enhancing the reliability and security of the delivery process.

As of April 2014, according to Alibaba’s prospectus, China Smart Logistics Network had 1,712

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distribution centres, of which 532 were in the more remote areas of western China, and more than

100,000 delivery stations across China. In addition, Alibaba collaborated with China Post, the

national mail service, to access a network of 100,000 service points across China and reach out to

customers in the most remote and rural areas.

In 2014, Alibaba bought a 10.35 per cent stake in SingPost and in the following year, invested USD

138.6 million to gain an additional five per cent stake. Alibaba’s logistic expansion also involved the

investment of USD 67.85 million for a 34 per cent stake in Quantium Solutions International –

SingPost’s subsidiary that provides logistics and warehousing services to over 10 countries across

Asia Pacific.

Innovating for micro-financing to support its sellers

“There are two big opportunities in the future financial industry. One is online banking, where all the

financial institutions go online; the other is Internet finance, which is purely led by outsiders. The

financial industry needs spoilers to make a revolution”.

Jack Ma

In 2011, Alibaba’s e-commerce sites had more than 16 million sellers, nearly 90 per cent of whom

were small and microenterprises with difficulty accessing finance to fuel their growth. AliFinance

was set up in 2011 to provide small, fast and flexible short-term loans to sellers on Alibaba’s e-

commerce sites. Alibaba has developed its own proprietary credit-scoring system based on online

activities, using big data to understand seller behaviours and in turn offer responsive financial

services. Alibaba’s credit-scoring system taps on over 1,000 data sets, including:

Revenue growth

Transaction data

Position or rating of the seller in his own industry

Changes in rating within the industry

User ratings and purchases

Poor behaviour and penalty records on Taobao

The number of users rating the merchant as a favourite

The number of repeat buyers

As of 2013, AliFinance had 409,444 borrowers with an outstanding portfolio of USD 17.2 billion.

Loans were 100 per cent unsecured and required sellers to engage in three months of platform

trading activity to qualify. The average loan size was USD 3,500 to USD 5,000 and repayment terms

were flexible. Sellers qualified for a credit limit based entirely on their credit-scoring systems. No

face-to-face contact was needed between borrower and lender, with all communications,

contracting and payments handled online. This reduced costs and time.

Innovating a money market instrument for all to invest

In June 2013, Alibaba launched its innovative money market investment product, Yu’e Bao, which

means “leftover treasure”. Alipay users can invest their excess cash in Yu’e Bao or even the

minimum deposit of just one yuan. Then, they can withdraw their cash anytime to make electronic

payments for online purchases or credit card and utility bills; buy lottery tickets; and book holidays.

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These online transactions can be made via personal computers and Alipay wallet-enabled

smartphones.

Yu’e Bao, managed by Alibaba’s subsidiary Tian Hong Asset Management, provides much higher

return earnings with an annual rate of about six per cent, compared with ordinary saving accounts

that offer 0.35 per cent. The higher interest rate and flexibility of withdrawing funds attracted one

million users in just one week. These users often transacted in very small amounts. By the end of

June 2013, Alibaba secured 2.5 million users, with more than 57 per cent of them accessing the

service via their smartphones. According to Financial Times, Yu’e Bao successfully acquired 81

million users in March 2014, just nine months after its launch. This pool of investors was bigger in

comparison with that of China’s equity markets, which boasted about 77 million equity trading

accounts.

With its online and mobile platforms extending their reach beyond that of traditional bank outlets’

and its almost zero – one yuan – minimum deposit, Yu’e Bao is an innovation that liberalises financial

investments, making it easy for all to invest.

Alibaba’s innovations generate dollars and cents

George Yip, Co-director of Centre on China Innovation, China Europe International Business School,

described Alibaba’s innovations as “pragmatic and profitable” in that they came together to

generate stable and astounding revenue streams. The main revenue sources of Alibaba were the

premium or value-added services that it sold. They included online marketing services, premium

memberships, Alipay’s processing services and other value-added services. The following details

these premium or value-added services.

Online marketing services

Pay-for-performance marketing services – Sellers can bid for keywords that match product or

service listings appearing in search or browser results on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis and at the

prices established by Alibaba’s online auction system.

Display marketing services – Sellers can bid for display positions on marketplaces at fixed prices

or prices established by Alibaba’s real-time bidding system.

Placement services – Sellers can pay placement fees to purchase promotional lots on the

Juhuasuan marketplace for a specified period.

Transactions processing

Sellers on Tmall and Juhuasuan pay a commission fee based on a percentage of GMV for

transactions processed through Alipay in the respective marketplaces.

Storefront fees

Sellers pay monthly subscription fees for Wangpu, Alibaba’s storefront software that includes a suite

of tools assisting sellers with upgrading, decorating, and managing their storefronts.

Membership fees

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Sellers can pay to upgrade their free basic membership to TrustPass™ and Gold Supplier

memberships. These premium memberships allow sellers to host superior storefronts, with access to

basic data analytic applications and upgraded storefront management tools.

Value-added services

Sellers can pay for value-added services that deal with sales performance data analytics, product

showcase, custom clearance and other import/export business solutions.

Alibaba’s customer’s experience

The uptake of Alibaba’s premium or value-added services relies solely on the volume of online

business that sellers can generate. And business hinges on a superior customer experience. Based on

a study conducted in 2014 by global research and advisory firm Forrester, it was found that

customers in China had a better shopping experience on Alibaba’s sites than in physical stores. The

following subsections discuss some key factors contributing to the positive shopping experience.

Trust and transparency – Knowing the “history” of the stores

On Alibaba’s e-commerce site, customers can view exactly how many units of a product have been

sold in the past 30 days. Besides that, they can also find out how many of these sales are successful

transactions. This information translates to merchant legitimacy. For example, based on a

merchant’s record of selling 1,000 dresses in the past month, of which 995 are successful

transactions, customers can make an informed decision and conclude that the merchant is a reliable

one.

Customers also make purchases with more confidence as they are paying through Alipay, a well-

established, trusted and convenient payment platform.

Customer’s freedom to enquire and buy everything

On Alibaba’s e-commerce sites, customers have limitless choices as well as a colourful and exciting

shopping experience. They have access to a wide range of products in the most diverse categories.

Acting as a one-stop shop for every conceivable product, Alibaba allows its customers to purchase

everything from auto body parts to firefighting equipment and LED displays, polymer gels to copper

wire and even a live sheep.

Not only that, Alibaba has been expanding its fresh food range by collaborating with domestic as

well as international farmers and producers. Due to the rampant food safety scandals in China,

Chinese customers particularly appreciate foreign food and fresh products as they are considered

safer.

In addition to being able to buy everything on Alibaba, customers can anonymously post enquiries

on any products without fear of peer judgement. Instant-messaging options are also available to

provide real-time customer service to help customers with questions that they may otherwise be

uncomfortable to ask when in a physical store.

All customers, even the usually shy ones, have a strong voice on Alibaba’s sites. They can post

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compliments or harsh criticism on merchants’ storefronts. Merchants, who will want to maintain

their reputations, are quick to resolve customer issues in an amicable fashion.

Visual treats and irresistible promotions

On Alibaba’s e-commerce sites, customers are constantly engaged visually through videos, slides,

close-up images and virtual shops laid out on very long web pages. Customers scroll down a single

page instead of having to click or open new pages. This minimises the time spent waiting for new

pages to reload. For example, a single webpage for OtterBox, a consumer electronics accessory

company on Tmall.com, features over 40 images of a waterproof mobile phone case, a four-minute-

long video, a 12-step guide on how to install the case as well as a four-step guide of the packing

process. With these detailed presentations, consumers can visually engage with and learn about the

product.

Furthermore, exciting promotions offering exclusive discounts on selected lines and generous

discounts are constantly held during holidays and special occasions. In this regard, Alibaba presents

its customers with the thrill of bargain hunting.

Alibaba – Going beyond 2016

Although Alibaba has captured the hearts of millions, the ever-changing demands of Chinese

consumers and the volatile e-commerce landscape mean that Alibaba has to continue to innovate.

Some areas of opportunities include

E-commerce

Alibaba’s strategy for future growth is dependent on the further advancement of e-commerce in

China. There is still vast growth potential in China’s Internet retailing. Although Internet access in

China had increased significantly in the recent years, only less than half of the total population had

access. Of these, only 49 per cent engaged in online shopping activities even though the number of

online buyers grew by 25 per cent in 2013. The promising growth in 2013 indicated the population’s

burgeoning interest in online shopping.

Mobile commerce

As reported by Fortune in January 2014, “China had broken a new global record in smartphone

penetration and this would have dramatic effects on content and commerce in the world’s most

populous Internet market”. As smartphone technology proliferated in China, mobile commerce was

becoming the main avenue for Chinese customers to buy online. As of December 2013, Alibaba

announced that 76 per cent of mobile-commerce transactions (in terms of GMV) in China took place

via one of Alibaba’s apps and mobile-optimised portals. In order to strengthen its position in mobile

commerce, Alibaba bought a 100 per cent stake in UCWeb in June 2014. UCWeb is one of China’s

leading mobile browser development firms.

Untapped markets – second-tier cities

China’s retail market is highly fragmented and composed of many small and medium-sized retailers,

unlike in the US where big-box retailers dominate. This leads to a lack of offline retail infrastructure

especially in second-tier cities. There are very limited brick-and-mortar shopping options for aspiring

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Chinese customers whose buying focus has shifted from meeting basic needs to pursuing a higher

quality of life. Thus, a golden opportunity presents itself for Alibaba to serve these customers by

providing them limitless shopping options to enjoy their newfound financial freedom.

Conclusion

Alibaba was hailed as the world’s third most innovative company in 2015 by leading business news

magazine and website Fast Company. Alibaba was viewed somewhat whimsically as an “eBay-

Amazon-PayPal hydra” in China, “reinventing some of the country’s most moneyed industries, from

banking to entertainment”. From customers’ perspectives, Alibaba helped them to “save, spend and

be entertained”.

As Alibaba looks beyond 2016, it faces one question – “What business strategies should be

implemented to drive and sustain growth in the fast-evolving e-commerce landscape?”

End-of-Case Questions

Question 1

What are the needs of Alibaba’s customer segments, i.e. Chinese SME sellers, Chinese buyers and

foreign buyers?

Question 2

What is Alibaba’s value proposition to each of these segments?

Question 3

How does Alibaba’s multi-sided platform business model work?

Question 4

Discuss Alibaba’s business activities and the relationships between these activities using the Michael

Porter’s Activity Map.

Question 5

In the Michael Porter’s Activity Map, identify the higher order strategic themes that drive Alibaba’s

business success.

Question 6

Using the Threat, Opportunity, Weakness and Strength matrix, list Alibaba’s macro threats and

opportunities as well as internal strengths and weaknesses.

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Question 7

Discuss the strategies that Alibaba should implement to drive and sustain growth in the fast-evolving

e-commerce landscape based on

Strengths and opportunities: How can Alibaba’s current strengths help it to capitalise on its

opportunities?

Strengths and threats: How can Alibaba’s current strengths help it to identify and avoid current

and potential threats?

Weaknesses and opportunities: How can Alibaba overcome its current weaknesses by tapping into

its opportunities?

Weaknesses and threats: How can Alibaba best diminish its weaknesses and avoid current and

potential threats?

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treasure-余额宝-234236 on 8 September 2015.

About Nanyang Technopreneurship Case Centre

With funding from both the National Research Foundation of Singapore and Nanyang Technological

University, the Nanyang Technopreneurship Case Centre (NTCC) was one of the initiatives of the

Nanyang Technopreneurship Centre (NTC) to enhance the quality of entrepreneurship education

through the case pedagogy. These are part of NTC’s efforts to foster, promote and nurture

enterprising mind-sets, skills and knowledge in entrepreneurship education.

There is a plethora of business cases but a general paucity of cases highlighting the specific problems

faced by technopreneurs in growing their ventures. NTCC adds value to Technopreneurship

education by developing a pool of cases on technology-based local and international enterprises.

Through the cases, NTCC hopes to share the experiences, success stories and challenges faced by

entrepreneurs/intrapreneurs in growing their organisations and how they overcome their problems

to sustain growth.

The theme of this first compendium is “innovation through technology”. It features Singapore-based

and global companies confronting issues and challenges due to technological shifts in the industry

and changing market and competitive dynamics; when introducing new products in the marketplace;

and in using technology to drive organizational change.

Online versions of these cases are available for complimentary downloads at

www.ntc.ntu.edu.sg/ntcc .

Teaching notes are also available to faculty members for use as reference, reading and/or teaching

materials in various academic and professional programs. For further information, please contact

Ms. Denise Lee ([email protected]) and Mr. Wu Chong Chuan ([email protected]).

Acknowledgment

The Nanyang Technopreneurship Case Centre (NTCC) was supported by the National Research

Foundation (NRF) and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU). We would like to thank NRF and

NTU for their funding support.

We would also like to show our gratitude to all the writers, reviewers and anyone who have

contributed to the accomplishment of the NTCC.

http://www.ntc.ntu.edu.sg/ntcc

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

2. alibaba - "drive to sustain growth in the progressing world of e

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